neverleft wrote:
For once in your newcomer lives why don?t you start thinking on your own and STOP looking to NYC for shi*. You are all freaking copy cats. They have a Whole Foods, you want a Whole Foods. They have an Elevated Park, you want an elevated park. They have a Barcade, you want (and got) a Barcade. What next a floating swimming barge in the Hudson off LSP? How unoriginal of you.

Do you think I am going to pay the millions and millions of dollars to not only construct your elevated park but the millions to maintain it? And the millions to settle the law suits from the parents of kids (and drunken hipsters) who fall off of your elevated park? Connecting bridges over every street..you must be on drugs.

Think out of the box for once and let NYC look to us!

Here is a simple cool idea. I have not read the entire thread and don?t know if anyone else came up with this ingenious (and cheap) idea yet. (but from reading your posts from other threads I doubt it)

Why would we want another outdoor park in JC we have enough of them. Do something called WALKING or RIDING A BIKE over to JC?s many parks. The idea of a quiet out of the way park is NOT an elevated park. What peace would it bring? You are going to hear the city noise 10 fold being elevated. (sound rises like heat) Also do you really want to look across the street over into someone?s 3rd floor bathroom window while they shave their legs or pits? (ok creepy calm down) And how fast do you think you can climb down 2 flights of stairs to go after the punk you see breaking into your car 20 feet below? Those pictures someone posted are so breath taking but guess what you could have taken the pictures at street level and had the same effect. Duh.

Here do this?.for under $500K ..no under $300K.

-put up a BIG sign that says FREE DIRT. (let?s just hope there?s no chromium in it .. maybe a NO RETURNS sign would also help)

-dig all of the dirt out of the embankments leaving the beautiful bare stone walls. Patch them if need be. At least you won?t need a multimillion dollar French drain system in the dirt to protect them.

-make multiple street level mini enclosed parks on each block (who the F wants to climb two flights of stairs to get to an elevated park..with a baby carriage) Cut entrances into the stone walls, put up cool local artist created gates. (with locks..heavy locks!)

-Throw a tennis court in one, a hand ball court (or are you yuppies into bocce ball now) in another. A Jungle Gym for the rug-rat crowd. No hoops though because as you know it always attracts a bad element. (a yuppie with a b-ball is bad news a very ugly sight, especially when they start trying to talk ghetto)

- leave a little dirt in each .. make mini elevated park areas with flowers and trees (I?m talking 3 feet dirt mounds not 20 feet) within the walls. (and NO freakin dog walks) Make one just an adult chill park for relaxing (and picking up chicks) ..maybe have one of those fancy Japanese gardens in it with those cool big orange and white fish. (yeah like they would last one night in JC)

-the possibilities are endless mini golf, small rentable party space(cover half of one with a glass roof) ,gazebos, music shells (can you image the acoustics for summer time concerts?) One more thing NO bathrooms let people shi* for themselves somewhere else or hold it in.

Get the gist of it yet? Enclosed mini parks within the city to SHUT OUT all of the city noise and ugly sights. (not you honey) Not an expensive elevated park that lifts you 20 feet above the city. The same dam city noise and ugly sights just 20 feet higher?no thanks!

Let?s get started. Print up some flier?s announcing a design contest. A fresh design with be picked for each blocks mini-enclosed park space.



(listen to this old-timer...I posted this just 5 minutes ago and look...a new yorker named maybeMoving is already thinking about moving here.)

JPhurst wrote:
Quote:

ExUWSguy wrote:


I am all for the Embankment, but we can't discount corybraiterman and stillinjc's concerns.

And we haven't! The discussion over funding, maintenance, upkeep, etc is something that advocates for preservation have been discussing for years. And it still is being discussed. Questions of feasibility, expense are constantly on the table for discussion.

Of all the groups I've seen advocating for open space and/or preservation, the EPC along with the Reservoir Alliance are probably the most thorough in addressing these issues. These groups actually raised funds, obtained earmarks and pledges, drew up plans, hired engineers, conducted studies, etc.

The problem is not that a minority on this board are raising "concerns." The problem is that they are making ill informed personal attacks on other people. When they do raise an issue of substance, it is something that, had they done their homework, they would have realized it had been largely addressed.

By all means, people should attend the meetings, council hearings and the like. I will simply note that at last night's council meeting, or for that matter any other council meetings where the subject was addressed, no one who thought this was a "waste of money" bothered to show.

JPhurst wrote:
Quote:

stillinjc wrote:


I take Cory seriously. Because he's absolutely right.

Anonymous cowards on jclist don't count.

ExUWSguy wrote:


I am all for the Embankment, but we can't discount corybraiterman and stillinjc's concerns.

corybraiterman wrote:
and by anonymous, you mean someone using their real name?

kencares wrote:
Cory's not anonymous... He outed himself as the guy that used to work at a record store at the mall on 440:

I imagine him to be like Jack Black in high fidelity:

okay, so humor us: what DO you want there?

matty wrote:
corybraiterman and stillinjc:

no one here thinks jersey city is capable of creating a $75 mm park whose maintenance runs in the multiple millions of dollars a year. what most of us here want is a value-add project with the potential to put our city on the map. right now, our "map" consists of lsp, lefrak, crooked politicians, a strong rental market, and, soon, a jersey shore spinoff.

matty wrote:
corybraiterman and stillinjc:

...no one is denying the obstacles; to deny the potential, as you both seem intent on doing, however, is offensively stupid. you guys must really love condos.

i really admire the ambition of you both, lusting after firefighters, libraries and a quiet, bedroom-oriented jersey city where tax dollars aren't wasted...

corybraiterman wrote:
Quote:

matty wrote:
you guys must really love condos.

I really don't know how many times I've written that I don't want a condo built there in this thread alone. I think this has to be pushing a dozen, perhaps twenty.

stillinjc wrote:


I take Cory seriously. Because he's absolutely right.

corybraiterman wrote:
http://www.embankment.org/whitesite/embank9again.jpg is clearly not taken from the embankment

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2224/2065034603_15bf95720e.jpg great shot of the Bed Bath & Beyond. That's fantastic. Real tourist attraction.

Many of those shots look like they could be taken from half the backyards in the area - position camera low near a bush. Sorry, some nice pictures of bushes aren't worth 7 million+. Find them for less. Or let the Embankment rot as is and keep them. I'd rather see that ugly wall stay up there instead of flushing all that money away to get new ones.

Even assuming you have the Embankment down past Marin, then what? It ends on the east side of the block instead of the west in the shopping lot of Pep Boys. Hooray?

matty wrote:
you guys must really love condos.

matty wrote:
corybraiterman and stillinjc:

no one here thinks jersey city is capable of creating a $75 mm park whose maintenance runs in the multiple millions of dollars a year. what most of us here want is a value-add project with the potential to put our city on the map. right now, our "map" consists of lsp, lefrak, crooked politicians, a strong rental market, and, soon, a jersey shore spinoff.

the park will take 5-7 years to plan and then another 5-7 years to build. but with some (uncharacteristic) creativity, it's possible to accomplish something beneficial to the city and its residents. no one is denying the obstacles; to deny the potential, as you both seem intent on doing, however, is offensively stupid. you guys must really love condos.

and as for the $7 mm: jersey city's budget is nearly a 1/2 billion dollars. do you think that a one-time expense of $7 million for land that's clearly worth many more times that, whether it be parkland or condos, is a bad investment for the city? the city paid nearly that much (federal, not city money) to put a chain-link fence underneath the turnpike.

i really admire the ambition of you both, lusting after firefighters, libraries and a quiet, bedroom-oriented jersey city where tax dollars aren't wasted. perhaps by the time city hall figures out how to accomplish all that aww-shucks super bowl-commercial just-folks bullshit, maybe the embankment will be a park in some fashion.

hero69 wrote:
I can't wait to have a chai latte on the Embankment. Maybe with Snooki and the Situation.

Vigilante wrote:
Quote:

stillinjc wrote:
Quote:

hero69 wrote:
I want my park.

And you want ME to pay for it.

So say it.

Just say it.

You will pay for it just as you paid the pension of a 52 year old retired JCPD officer who lives in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

JPhurst wrote:
I have never taken credit personally for the Embankment being saved. The Conservancy was a supporter, and I did serve as President for 3 1/2 years, but support was established by my predecessors and continued by my successors.

The EPC has been the main organization, of course. And there are several people who have put in a lot more time, money and effort and my defense of them on this board has not been to preserve any legacy of myself. Rather, it has been a defense of those ill-informed, cynical, and hateful attacks on good people who have done work for no personal benefit.

Calling someone a "fraud" could be conceived as many as defamatory. But since no one takes you seriously I don't really care.